


All That You Can't Leave Behind

by mjules



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Dubious Consent, M/M, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-29
Updated: 2011-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 05:08:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mjules/pseuds/mjules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders and Garrett meet in Lothering just before it falls to the blight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That You Can't Leave Behind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spicyshimmy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, shimmy! Since you said you wanted this. I hope it works okay. :)
> 
> Fun facts about this fic:  
> 1\. It was inspired by the Helpful Refugee in Lothering in Dragon Age: Origins having the same voice actor as Hawke, and of course the timing lines up just perfectly. The Hawkes *would* have been in Lothering right before the blight took it.  
> 2\. It (briefly) had the working title "Fear and Lothering in Las Thedas". Titles are hard, okay?

Life in the Circle had left Anders unprepared for many things. He considered himself fortunate that he’d remained a free apostate to the ripe old age of twelve, giving him a kind of worldly air unmatched by others he met in the tower who had known nothing but the Circle since they were too young to remember. It _had_ given him an itch that was rather difficult to scratch -- he was fairly sure he’d never be happy as a Circle mage, when some others felt perfectly at home under the heel of the Chantry -- but he couldn’t view that as a bad thing.

But neither his childhood apostate status nor his training had given him an idea of just how bloody _expensive_ things were, out in a world where he was allowed -- nay, even expected! -- to do things for himself.

“You would think that at least _Karl_ might have mentioned it,” he muttered to the elfroot plant he was harvesting. He could never tell if Karl had managed to live as an apostate before being installed at the Fereldan Circle. No matter how many favors Anders plied him with, the man refused to speak of it. It wasn’t like his attitude toward the Circle itself was a giveaway, either.

Karl was…not _content_ , exactly, but certainly less restless than Anders, but he was a troublemaker. In that, Anders felt they were allies. Neither of them would ever be as favored or as trusted as Wynne, who got to go traipsing all over Thedas with barely an escort. But Wynne was her own kind of escort, possessed of a conscience so strict Knight-Commander Greagoir must have wished he could plant it in every templar’s brain.

But Anders was, for the moment, escortless himself, neither templar nor tower in sight. It had been a long trek across grassy hills to the Imperial Highway, especially since he hadn’t been able to stop in Redcliffe for a bath or supplies. Or food. He chewed the elfroot slowly, willing the thin herbal juices to at least prevent his stomach from turning cannibal and devouring itself in desperation. It was probably better he’d heard from a fleeing merchant that Redcliffe was suffering nightly attacks from some kind of horrific army of the undead; Redcliffe was altogether too close to the Tower of Magi, snug up close to the banks of Lake Calenhad as it was.

Some part of him worried if the tower was in any danger of attack, but how far could undead really walk before they started to fall apart, anyway? And to think they could swim across the lake -- utterly absurd. Not to mention the stairs if they managed to reach the island. No, the tower would be just fine. And even if, by some chance, they shambled out of Redcliffe and all the way up to the tower crossing where the lake was actually narrow enough to swim, and even if they made it across the lake and up the stairs -- well. Anders happened to know several mages with a fondness for setting things on fire, and there was a _reason_ the Fereldens burned their dead: to prevent them from coming back as the thralls of something truly terrible.

He lost several long minutes pondering the possible horror in seeing someone you’d once regarded fondly staggering toward you, mindless and ravening, and having to put them down like a darkspawn. When he finally shook off those morbid thoughts, he found that he was deeply disturbed to find that his stomach was still growling. Apparently his appetite was of a caliber not to be put off by something as petty as _flesh-eating monsters._

He was still at least two days’ journey from the nearest village, assuming he managed to make it there without being set upon by bandits or darkspawn.

“So clever of me,” he said to no one in particular, “escaping during a blight.”

His belly rumbled again, and he chose not to decide whether it was agreeing or disagreeing with him.

“I tell you what, though,” he promised himself aloud. “When we get to Lothering, we’re having a nice hot meal and a hot bath if I have to sell myself to pay for it.”

This time when his stomach twisted with hunger and snarled at him for its emptiness, he imagined that it rather approved of his plan. At least it had better; there was no way he was going to lose an argument with his own organs.

***

When he saw the merchant caravan ahead, his heart leapt. Here at least might be something he could do -- offer his services as a healer to their guards in exchange for safe passage and maybe a bit of food. He showed the herbs and poultices in his pouch as proof that he could do what he said, very carefully pretending his staff was only a walking stick. The robes were probably a dead giveaway, but at least he’d been smart enough to wear the general issue Chantry skirts and not the pretty silk Tevinter robes he’d stuffed in his pack on the way out. Those were for later, when he wasn’t scrambling along a dusty road in the middle of a blight.

The man in charge, however, was beady-eyed and sharp-tongued, and he told Anders that healing would pay for a spot trotting alongside the carts, but he wasn’t a Chantry sister to be handing out charity, and if Anders wanted to eat, he’d better cough up some coin.

“But I haven’t a copper to my name,” Anders had protested, trying to look helpless and charming. Unfortunately, he must have looked a bit too charming, because the merchant looked him up and down with a leer.

“Well then,” he said. “Either you’re just gonna go hungry, or you’re gonna figure out some other way to be of value.”

In the end, he serviced the head merchant and two of his guards, telling himself it was better than the templars, that at least he had a _choice_ this time. That at least he was _getting_ something out of it. Bartering himself, as it were, rather than having it stolen from him.

The food was actually pretty terrible -- stale bread and sour wine -- but he could feel his stomach writhing like a living thing as it tried to find just one more morsel, so he swallowed both. He told himself that his freedom made them taste sweeter and didn’t let himself think of Karl letting him take more than his fair share of elfroot syrup for his porridge in the mornings.

***

Lothering was a miserable little town. Anders didn’t know what he’d been expecting -- he’d known it wouldn’t be like Amaranthine or Denerim -- but he’d hoped he might at least find a place to sleep. Instead, all rentable beds were full of refugees fleeing the blight, and even the camp set up on the outskirts of town looked pretty crowded.

The grumbling of the townspeople confirmed that whatever space there was had been overtaken with asylum-seekers, and they made it pretty clear that Anders could expect to find little welcome if he was here for the same reason. That, and the templar who had planted himself in the middle of the road into town -- if you could call it a road; it was more like a footpath -- told Anders he needed to keep moving.

And maybe he could keep going, now that he’d had a little food courtesy of the merchant, but the refugee camp’s cookfires were wafting the scent of dried fish and weak parsnip stew his way. If his belly had been full, he might have turned his nose up at the smell, but hunger had a way of bringing a man to his knees. Sometimes literally, Anders thought bitterly, mind returning to his hard-earned dinner.

So maybe he could barter for stew first. But not from the refugees; he wouldn’t take their food, and he didn’t have anything to offer them in return. The tavern, though. That should have something. He might not get out in the world much, but he sure as hell read a lot of books about it -- noble ladies running off with their rogue lovers, stumbling into a tavern to get out of the rain, keeping their hooded cloaks over their faces so no one could tell their noble husbands… Funny how those roguish lovers always managed to have enough coin on them to buy them dinner and a room without breaking a sweat.

Maybe he could wash dishes or sweep the floors or something. He wasn’t used to that, but it couldn’t be that hard, could it?

Well, it could when the tavern owner already had a surplus of refugees trading services for meals and ale and room and board. And if he was looking for somewhere to sleep, he would have been better off begging the Dalish for mercy. The tavern’s lodgings were already so full, people were sleeping packed in next to each other with barely room for breath between.

“If you got coin, my cook can find you some food,” the owner promised. “If you don’t, best be beggin’ the refugees for a cup of watery soup. I can’t afford to be givin’ no one charity, not when everyone’s just as hard up.”

And hey, Anders didn’t mind turning a bit of trade into coin. The traveling merchant could attest to that. But Lothering was such a tiny dot of a town it didn’t even have a brothel, and the tavern was backed up against the Chantry so closely they might as well have a secret passage that allowed people to go straight from feeling guilty at services into the all-forgiving arms of a shot of whiskey. Hanging around outside in an attempt to solicit drunken tavern patrons would probably get him clapped in irons and handed over to the templars, no questions asked.

He left the tavern with a heavy sigh and stood still for a moment, collecting himself. Lothering had nothing for him, its succor drained dry by an entire horde of people as needy as him, if not needier. There was no one to turn to. He would just have to keep traveling and hope he could find another merchant who might let him tag along and beg a bite to eat now and again.

“Excuse me.”

The voice by his shoulder, slightly behind, startled him enough that he jumped, and a handsome young man -- the owner of the voice, apparently -- touched his shoulder lightly.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you. It’s only that… you look like you might be in need of help.”

Anders stared at the man -- his patched shirt and breeches, leather gloves that looked as if they’d seen better days, and boots held together with the judicious use of tattered cloth strips -- and just barely stopped himself from saying, “I look like _I_ need help? Have you seen yourself lately?”

“Are you a refugee too?” he heard himself ask instead, and contrary to popular Circle opinion, he did know enough of social etiquette to know it wasn’t a much better question than the other he’d been considering.

The man just smiled, though, and shrugged. “My brother and I fought at Ostagar. We fled when --” The words choked off, and Anders nodded sympathetically. Even in the tower, they’d heard about Ostagar. Plenty of Circle mages had been there as well and had not returned.

“You were lucky to get out,” he told the man. “Lucky to be here.”

The stranger laughed dryly. “You’re right. The darkspawn _are_ a worse fate, though barely.” He nodded toward the refugee camp Anders had passed on his way into town. “My family and I are in the camp. The tavern was already full by the time we got here, and neither Carver nor I have been able to find work. It seems all the people short on coin are selling their bodies instead, and no one has any use for two more.”

Anders had been staring at the camp, but he whipped his head toward the stranger now, surprised. Was the entire refugee camp whoring themselves out?

“Oh!” The man seem to realize how that had sounded and waved his hands in front of him, as if warding something off. “I didn’t mean like that! I would never -- that is -- ”

Anders felt his face heating at the memory of the merchant, and it must have shown, because the man was quick to backtrack.

“Not that there’s anything _wrong_ with -- Oh, Maker, I’ve made a mess out of this. Let’s start over.” He held out his hand. “Hello, I’m Garrett. I’m a refugee fleeing the blight. Can I be of service to you?”

Anders could still feel the blush lingering on his face, but he shook Garrett’s hand anyway. “My name is Anders.” He hesitated over any personal information, but decided he didn’t want to lose his new friend before they’d even gotten introductions out of the way. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, but unless you know someone willing to hire an unskilled worker or give out food for free, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do. But thank you.”

Garrett shifted and glanced over Anders’s shoulder toward the camp again. “Well, we don’t have much, but I’m sure my mother would be glad to share a bowl of our soup with you. And my sister…” His eyes flicked to the staff Anders had slung across his back, and Anders felt ice trickle down his spine like the time Karl had caught him in a Winter’s Grasp by “accident.” “My sister would be glad of a kindred spirit. Since our father died, she’s felt particularly lonely.”

All Anders instincts said to refuse, to walk away, to discreetly proposition a few townspeople instead and earn his own meal, but…

…But it sounded like Garrett’s sister was an apostate, and maybe his father had been too, and it would be _so nice_ to be able to relax and not have to hide what he was, even just for a few minutes. That would almost be more comforting than the food. And he supposed it could be a trap, but the templars had never seen much point in trying to trick him into anything. Usually they just marched up and grabbed him and dragged him away, smothering him with their bloody anti-magic spells.

Besides, Garrett had kind eyes.

Anders took a deep breath and nodded. “If you’re sure it’s not too much trouble…”

Garrett smiled, bright and genuine, and Anders felt his heart skip a beat.

“You’re awfully nice for a Ferelden,” Anders blurted, and then smiled to cover the fact that he wished he could take it back. What a horrible thing to say to someone who had just offered to share what little he had.

“Mother always did say I was particularly helpful,” Garrett said good-naturedly. “That’s me -- the helpful refugee. Now let’s see about some soup.”

***

The soup wasn’t particularly good. There were barely any vegetables floating in the watery broth, and no meat at all, but it was warm and it had been offered freely, and it came with a side of warm conversation. It was obvious the entire family was worn by grief and fear, but they smiled -- except Garrett’s brother Carver, who scowled in a rather friendly kind of way -- and welcomed him in to their tent as if he were family.

Garrett’s sister, whose name he learned was Bethany, lit up at the sight of his staff, and she quizzed him over the sound of Carver groaning, “No more magic, please!”

He shared with her what he remembered from his lessons, which wasn’t very much, and what he’d learned from his own experiments, which was slightly more. Then Garrett’s mother -- Leandra, he thought her name was -- glanced at him from under a fall of hair that seemed to be going prematurely gray.

“You’ve learned a lot for a free mage,” she said mildly. “It’s hard to practice magic on the road.”

Just the fact that she’d used the phrase _free mage_ instead of _apostate_ endeared her instantly to Anders, but then she’d been married to a mage and given birth to another. She was likely more sympathetic than the average citizen.

“Maybe he’s escaped from the Circle,” Carver put in from where he was sharpening the edge of his sword. “Maybe we could get a reward if we turned him in.”

“Carver!” Three voices rebuked him; Anders held his tongue. Or rather it was frozen in his mouth, thick with dread.

“I’m just saying!” Carver protested. “We could use the money.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Leandra said firmly. “We do not _turn in_ mages in this family.”

“I need some air,” Garrett said, standing abruptly. “Anders, would you like to go for a walk?”

He was aware of the gazes turned on him -- Carver’s resentful, Bethany’s hopeful, Leandra’s worried -- and turned to Garrett. “I -- Sure. A walk is just the thing after that _delicious_ soup. Thank you, Leandra. Bethany, Carver. It was nice to meet you all.”

Garrett was holding the flap of the tent open, and Anders ducked out, grateful for the cool breeze on his face after the close air of the tent. A few steps away from the camp, he turned to look back for Garrett only to find the man staring at the back of his head. Garrett smiled, but Anders couldn’t help wondering if he was remembering his brother’s words.

They _could_ use the money. And if Anders had been in Carver’s place -- young, desperate, hungry, and not a mage himself -- he might have thought the same thing.

But Garrett smiled, the edges of those warm, brown eyes crinkling, and Anders found himself wanting to believe that _Garrett_ would never entertain the idea.

***

Garrett offered him a place to sleep in their tent, and Anders considered it for a moment if only because Carver was far less likely to bring a templar into the tent where his _sister_ was sleeping, but ultimately he couldn’t justify imposing on their generosity any more than he already had.

“That’s all right,” he lied. “I’ve made other accommodations.”

Garrett looked doubtful, but he bid Anders goodnight and went back to his tent. Anders went out into the fields behind the town against all his better judgment, shivering at sound of a pack of wolves howling coldly in the distance.

He found a grassy hollow in the side of a sloping hill, in the shadow of an abandoned house, and cast several protective glyphs in a perimeter. Then he cast a glyph of paralysis in the center of the hollow itself and curled up in the very center of it. At least that should give him time to wake up and defend himself against any attackers in the night.

He could only hope it would be enough.

***

Anders found himself oddly torn between avoiding Garrett and seeking out his company. Lothering wasn’t a very large town, so the former was often more difficult than the latter, but there were long hours each day that Garrett disappeared, and Anders suspected he might be running errands from the Chantry board, making himself useful despite the overabundance of able-bodied persons willing to work for coin.

Anders was too worried about the big, bad templars standing guard nearby to so much as read the Chantry board, but he did manage to find one or two refugees with copper in their pockets who liked the look of him.

One man, a farmer by the smell of him, offered him six silver to suck him off behind the tavern -- two in advance, the other four afterward -- and despite the way everything in him wanted to say no, that was six silver more than he had, so he agreed. It was the opposite of pleasant, but it was over quickly, and the man wasn’t interested in touching him anywhere else. Not only that, but he paid the other four silver without even trying to cheat, so Anders was feeling pretty proud of himself when he stepped out from behind the tavern six silver and eighty-five copper richer than he had been when he woke up that morning.

And that was when he saw Garrett standing in the road, speckled with blood and mud and with a fistful of bloody arrows that looked like he’d pulled them out of the corpses of his victims. He had a clear view of the back of the tavern, and the look on his face told Anders that he’d seen _everything_.

Guilt shot through him, followed quickly by annoyance. It was all well and good that _Garrett_ could go kill giant spiders and wolves and bears and be paid by the Chantry for it. If Anders wanted to do any of those things, he’d have to use magic, and he might as well hang a big sign around his neck that said COME AND GET IT, TEMPLARS.

So _Garrett_ could judge all he wanted, but a man had to eat, even if that man was an apostate without the convenience of an archer and a swordsman to do his hunting for him. But just as he was winding himself up to give Garrett that speech in a fit of self-righteousness, the other man turned and walked away, and Anders stayed where he was, feeling filthy and empty and slightly deflated.

***

He didn’t see Garrett at all the next day until right after sunset. Anders was slightly richer now than he had been, but there was still no room in the inn, so he was making his way out to the hollow in his little hill when he heard footsteps behind him.

He whirled, expecting anything from templars to a future customer who’d heard what he was offering, but he was taken off-guard to see Garrett standing there in the hazy moonlight, face half-obscured by shadow. One of his clients must have given him leather armor to wear, or else he could afford to buy his own. It wasn't expensive, but it was better than the rags he'd been in a few days ago, the buckles jingling softly as he shifted his weight.

“Got a minute?” Garrett said, and Anders found he missed being able to read the lines around Garrett’s eyes to know how he was feeling.

Anders swallowed past a suddenly dry mouth and nodded, then realized Garrett probably couldn’t see him any better. “Sure,” he said, and Garrett stepped closer.

“I…owe you an apology for yesterday.” Anders opened his mouth but snapped it shut again when Garrett shook his head. “I don’t want you to feel you aren’t still welcome in our tent. You certainly don’t have to spend more time there than you want, but our cookfire is always open for you.” Garrett paused, as if weighing whether to say the next words that were clearly on his lips. “Mother always sets out an extra bowl…just in case.”

Anders’s hand flexed around his staff, and he nodded. “Thank you. I…appreciate that. You can tell her I’ll be by tomorrow, then.”

Even in the dim light, Anders could tell that Garrett’s entire body relaxed, and his teeth flashed white as he smiled.

“We’re looking forward to it,” he promised, and Anders nodded dumbly as Garrett turned and went back to the village, whistling a disjointed tune.

***

The next day, Anders woke with an itch to keep moving. He’d been in Lothering for nearly a week, and if he stayed put much longer, he would be making himself an easy target for the templars. But he’d promised to have dinner with Leandra and her charming offspring today, so fleeing could wait until tomorrow.

He spent most of his earnings on buying some slightly wilted vegetables to contribute to the soup pot, and even though he felt bad for the brown edges on the cabbage leaves, Leandra acted like he’d brought her the ashes of Andraste Herself. Bethany clapped her hands excitedly, and even Carver looked appreciative. Garrett smiled at him so warmly that Anders felt like something inside him melted.

After dinner, Anders agreed to a walk with Garrett just to get away from the embarrassment of hearing Bethany and Leandra thank him continuously for the vegetables.

“It was the least I could do after all your help,” he said again as Garrett shooed him out of the tent, and they were passing the tavern before he finally let out a long breath.

Garrett chuckled, and Anders wondered if he only imagined the light brush of Garrett’s hand against his arm.

“I _would_ thank you for your contribution to dinner,” Garrett began, but Anders held up his hand emphatically.

“No need. I believe your mother and sister have heaped upon me such a surplus of gratitude that I shall still feel well-thanked next year at this time. I think I even heard Carver say _thank you_ , although it may have been _sod off and die_ instead.”

“It was good to have actual _soup_ instead of vaguely savory water,” Garrett said anyway, undeterred. “So I may or may not be grateful for any part you may or may not have played in that outcome.”

Anders couldn’t help his huff of laughter. “Well then, you may or may not be welcome.” He paused to glance up at the sky, and when he looked back down, it was to find Garrett staring at him, his face lit by the lanterns at the edge of a farmer’s field.

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” he heard himself say, and he was completely unprepared for the way Garrett’s expression shuttered instantly. “I’ve been here too long. If I stay longer, I risk making myself a target for the templars.”

Garrett nodded. If anyone understood, it would be him, but Anders still felt himself driven to explain.

“I escaped the Circle tower at Lake Calenhad. I barely made it this far, and it’s not far enough. They still have my phylactery. I imagine it’s only the blight that’s kept them from catching up to me yet, and even darkspawn won’t keep them away forever. I’m… They like to make an example of me. This is the sixth time I’ve escaped, so I’m sort of an _especially_ wanted fugitive right now, and not even wanted in the _right_ ways, not that I’d want to be wanted by a templar and oh, Maker, _wanted_ doesn’t even sound like a word anymore and -- mmph!”

Not only did Garrett’s lips against his cut off his stream of increasingly senseless words, they drove his entire vocabulary out of his even more senseless head. He froze in shock, unprepared, and just as he was finally figuring out that he wanted to _reciprocate_ and _Hold still, Garrett, so I can kiss you back_ \-- Garrett was pulling away, face darkening in the glow of the lantern.

“I’m sorry,” Garrett said. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean --” He took a deep breath, and Anders could hear how it rasped unsteadily in his throat. Then he was digging in the pouch at his hip, and before Anders could even register what was happening, he pulled out a small gold ring. Too small for an adult’s fingers, even an adult elf, it glinted brightly in the lantern light. Anders’s stomach sank into the soles of his feet. Was -- was Garrett trying to _pay_ him for that kiss? Just because he’d seen --

“Here,” Garrett said, taking Anders’s hand and pressing the ring into it. “Take this. As -- as a token of appreciation. Of…friendship. And hope.” He curled Anders’s fingers around the ring, and Anders felt something poke his palm, a small, sharp post. _An earring, then_. “Don’t be afraid to sell it if you need to, to eat or…”

“Thank you,” Anders whispered, and leaned up to kiss him gently. This time it was Garrett’s turn to freeze, and Anders stayed there until Garrett kissed him back tentatively, arms going around Anders’s waist.

Anders was short of breath when they broke apart, and Garrett’s breathing wasn’t too steady either, but when Anders indicated his spot on the side of the hill, Garrett hesitated.

“I…I want to,” he said, and Anders could tell he meant that with every fiber of his being. “But Carver got a position as night watchman for one of the merchants, and if something happened to Mother and Bethany…”

“I understand.” Anders kissed him again because he couldn’t _not_ do it, and Garrett groaned into his mouth.

“Maker’s breath,” he whispered against Anders’s lips when the kiss broke. “I wish…” He cut himself off again by kissing Anders, but only briefly, pulling back before Anders could deepen it. “Be safe, Anders. Maker watch over you.”

“And you.” The words barely came out past the tightness in his throat, and it was all he could do not to chase after Garrett as the other man turned and went back to the refugee camp. When his silhouette was too far away to see even the set of his shoulders, Anders realized that his hand _hurt_.

He gasped and flexed his fingers, realizing that he’d been clenching his fist so tightly the earring had pierced his skin, and a tiny trickle of blood wended its way down his palm. He waited until he was in the hollow of the hill, where he was less likely to be spotted from the town, before he cast a healing spell. The skin knitted back together as if there had never been a wound, and Anders ran his finger over the smooth gold curve of the earring before he tucked it into the purse at his belt.

It was a beautiful gift, and he would love to wear it, but it seemed that wearing an earring around too many people who were desperate for any kind of money would be a bad idea. One day, when he was far enough away, he’d wear it. And then he would never take it out again.

***

He was only a few days’ travel from Lothering when he heard that the village had fallen to the horde. He stood in the middle of the Imperial Highway, looking back the way he’d come, his heart thudding loudly in his chest. Surely Garrett had gotten his family out in time. They were strong. They were smart. They were _fine_.

 _“Stay safe, Anders,”_ Garrett pleaded in his memory, and Anders slipped his fingers into his pouch and curled them around the earring.

“You too,” he whispered. “Please.”

“Oy, healer! Stop dawdling and catch up before the blight finds us too!” The friendly merchant who’d allowed Anders to travel with his caravan -- for only the price of healing his guards and making medicinal poultices, even -- called back to him, jolting him from his reverie. Getting eaten by the darkspawn wouldn’t help Garrett get away any faster; all he could do was pray and run.

So he did.

***

He made it all the way to Denerim that time. Denerim, which was much larger than Lothering and had a proper brothel -- _the_ brothel, if the rumors were to be believed. The proprietor let him join her staff on a temporary basis, provided she got a cut of his earnings, and he set about earning the cost of a one-way ticket to Tevinter.

Working in the Pearl was actually a good deal more entertaining than kneeling for six silver behind the Lothering tavern had been, especially when he was bedded by an adventurous pirate captain and an elvish assassin from Antiva -- at the same time. It seemed they knew each other, and before the night was over, he knew them pretty well too.

That night earned him the last funds he needed for a ship across the Waking Sea, and it was beginning to look like he might have made it after all. He was considering putting Garrett’s earring in his ear to celebrate his freedom, but he would wait until the ship landed in Tevinter. No use in jinxing himself.

The next day, the templars caught him at the docks.

***

When they got him back to the tower at Lake Calenhad, he had just enough time to find out that over half the mages were dead from a failed revolution and had barely escaped the Rite of Annulment. Wynne had gone off with a pair of Grey Wardens, and when he asked about Karl, First Enchanter Irving said only “Kirkwall” before the templars hauled Anders off to solitary confinement.

They searched him before they threw him in the cell, and it was all he could do to keep the earring out of their hands.

Every day for the next year, he rubbed his thumb across Garrett’s earring as if it were a talisman. As if it would help him be less _alone._

A token of appreciation. Of friendship. Of _hope_.

He held onto it, and he didn’t let go.

***

If they’d hoped to break his spirit by putting him in solitary for a year, if they’d hoped that he would stop trying to escape, would settle down and be a good little Circle mage, they were sorely mistaken.

This time, he didn’t wait to put in the earring out of some misguided superstition. The templars had found him anyway last time, so this time he would wear the damn thing right from the beginning, along with his prized set of Tevinter robes. They would be his good luck charms.

And they must have been, because this time when the order caught up with him, he was in the company of a Grey Warden, and King Alistair himself approved Anders’s conscription. Lucky indeed.

And maybe being a Warden wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but it wasn’t the Circle either. He was free.

***

He never would have come to Kirkwall if it hadn’t been for Karl. But he couldn’t stay with the Wardens, not after what he’d done, and his new passenger kept pushing him to start the campaign for mage freedom _somewhere._ Besides that, Karl’s letters were disturbingly formal. There was something wrong -- very wrong -- and Anders was going to find out what it was.

His Grey Warden stipend and the profits from selling a few of the trinkets his former Warden Commander had given him were enough to buy passage to the City of Chains, and while he missed his cat, he hadn’t had time to stop in at Amaranthine to get him back from Delilah. Pounce was probably leading a better life there, spoiled by Nathaniel’s sister and her doting husband and child, but Anders couldn’t help thinking how much fun he would have had chasing the ship’s rats.

He would never admit it, but he searched the faces of the Ferelden refugees on the ship with him. None of them bore the slightest resemblance to Garrett and his family, though, and Anders eventually had to turn his mind to what lay ahead to stop thinking about Pounce and Garrett.

 _We have much work to do,_ Justice rumbled. As much as Anders had trouble telling their thoughts apart sometimes, there were days when Justice’s voice boomed as loudly in his head as it had from behind his helmet in the Fade. _Time to turn your thoughts to what awaits rather than what you are leaving behind._

***

The first day in the Darktown clinic, Anders catches several of his patients eyeing his earring. He can’t tell if they’re resentful or just practically contemplating how much money they could get for it if they ripped it out of his ear, but either way, it seems prudent to remove it.

 _We could buy many supplies with the money from selling that bauble._ This time he really can’t tell if it’s Justice speaking or his own issues, but either way, he tucks the earring into his purse and ignores the spike of guilt he feels at doing so.

 _It was a gift,_ he protests. He doesn’t know if the argument is valid or if it’s so pathetic it doesn’t deserve an answer, but either way, the earring stays in his purse. Its presence reminds him of the last unconditional kindness he received, and he likes to think they would be proud of him if they could see him now.

And then one day, the door of his clinic opens, and it’s all he can do to keep standing.

“Anders,” Garrett says on a disbelieving breath. “When Lirene said the healer was named Anders, I didn’t dare hope -- I never thought -- It’s really you!”

“Need us to give you some time alone with Blondie there, Hawke?” a dwarf by his side asks cheekily. It takes Anders a moment to realize that _Hawke_ must refer to Garrett, and when Garrett fidgets uneasily and hesitates over his answer, the dwarf just laughs and herds the other two people back out of the clinic. “Don’t worry, Rivaini,” Anders hears him say. “We’ll just press our ears to the door.”

“Eugh,” says the white-haired elf with them, and then the door closes and it’s no one but Anders and Garrett and half of Darktown listening in from outside.

“I have so much to tell you,” Anders says, stomach twisting at the thought of what Garrett is going to say when he gets to the whole _Justice_ thing, but Garrett just smiles and shakes his head.

“We have time,” he says.

And for a moment, Anders can almost believe him.


End file.
